Transcript

0:00

And another lesson I, I, I believe is, we, we have also recognized is particularly in relation to sexual violence offenses. We have not been as successful as we would have wished; we have not had a very good record of convictions for, for sexual violence.

0:18

Even though right from the beginning this tribunal broke fresh ground in the Akayesu case by holding that sexual violence can const-, can constitute genocide. But we haven’t gone, gone much beyond that.

0:33

And the lesson we’ve learned in respect of sexual violence is that it is important and necessary to prosecute it but you have to fast track it. We, w-, you, you have to give it priority in terms of prosecution.

0:48

If the cases don’t get to court within a number of years, you, you’ll find that by the time you are ready to go to court, your victim is not interested in justice, is, is (___) not interested in justice. You want to pursue the justice line. The victim has resettled, is remarried, has family.

1:08

They don’t want to reopen those issues anymore and, and that’s one of the problems we’ve had. They don’t want to reopen. You want to push the justice angle but they say, “No. Look, I don’t want to reopen that chapter again,” and you end up therefore not being able to prosecute. So you need to, I think, to, to deal with sexual violence very early, at a very early stage when people still, when victims still want justice and they can still, you know, pursue the, the, the justice line.

The views expressed in the video interviews are those of the speaker and do not necessary reflect the views of the Value Sensitive Design Research Lab, Information School, University of Washington, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, United Nations, or the funders of this project.